


evil!kristen

by nonbinarywithaknife (littleboxes)



Series: dimension 20 [74]
Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Canonical Character Death, Drabble, Fictional Religion & Theology, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Resurrection, Snippets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:53:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27552616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleboxes/pseuds/nonbinarywithaknife
Summary: Bits from an alternate version of unluck chapter two
Series: dimension 20 [74]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706107
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13





	evil!kristen

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [unluck](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25920808) by [nonbinarywithaknife (littleboxes)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleboxes/pseuds/nonbinarywithaknife). 



> kristen's chapter was originally a different concept i ended up changing but here's some parts from it i think are p good

The first time the Forest of the Nightmare King expanded, the walls creaked and groaned with the screams of tortured creatures.

When the overgrown walls finally fell, Arborly was the first town to go. There were no survivors reported.

There is no way to stop the expansion of the forest.

The only thing to do is to pray that she won't come to your town next.

/

When Kristen dies the first time, she does it alone on the floor of the cafeteria, bible in one hand and staff in the other. When Kristen dies, she meets the god she’s spent her life worshiping, and what she meets is a disappointment. When Kristen is resurrected, she’s sent home with a pat on the back, and not a single person asks her if she’s okay. 

(Principal Aguefort winks and tells her she’ll get the hang of it next time.) (Kristen is cold and scared and doesn’t want there to be a next time.)

(The nurse tells her to rate the pain on a scale of 1-10.) (Kristen feels fine and she feels dead, and she tells the nurse, “uh, like. A three?” and it’s not a lie but her heart hurts and she feels cold and Kristen tries to feel the warmth of Helio but all she can think of is _disappointing_.)

(Her parents tell her this is proof that she’s Helio’s chosen- resurrected on the first day!) (Kristen looks at her bible and feels nauseous and cold and empty and dead, and doesn’t know what to do.)

/

When Kristen dies the second time, it’s several years later. When she dies the second time, she does it as a cleric who has changed her faith more times than her adventuring party, which is to say it’s reaching the double digit numbers, and she does it surrounded by her- not friends. 

Acquaintances, maybe, but the other cleric of the group doesn’t understand how no god feels right because all Kristen can think about when she tries to believe is how sure she was in Helio’s light and the cold way her stomach dropped, looking into Helio’s face and feeling nothing but _I thought you’d be more._

So, at the crux of their junior year quest, Kristen dies. 

She wakes up- or maybe she was never awake at all- in a void and the void says to her, _in the same way that your heart feels and your mind thinks, you, mortal beings, are the instrument by which the universe cares. If you choose to care, the universe cares, and if you don’t, then it doesn’t._

Kristen looks at the void and the universe and says, _I care_ , and looks into the face of what her care has created and sees nothing but unanswered questions and disappointment, and she cares, and it hurts, and her heart is cold and Kristen doesn’t think she’ll ever be warm again, and she’s cared and cared and cared and it feels like everything in her life fits together like puzzle pieces from disparate boxes, and what’s the _point_ to caring, if it only ever hurts you?

/

She completes her senior year because she might as well, and drifts on the waves of apathy and uncertainty and until the dreams start.

They don’t care. They aren’t kind. But they are _certain_ , and they are powerful, and they don’t fill the cold parts of her heart but they do make them ache in a way that makes Kristen _feel_ something, and as the Nightmare King whispers, Kristen Applebees chooses to listen.

/

She learns about Sylvaire’s fear and the way they’d hunted their goddess until she became warped beyond recognition, and Kristen sees that even the one deity she’d thought might be enough is still like all the others. Disappointing. Uncertain. 

The Nightmare King is built on fear and mist and whispers, on dreams and illusions and all those ethereal things, but Kristen Applebees isn’t. 

No god will ever be enough. But Kristen Applebees? She will be.


End file.
